[40] Fun Times in Cleveland Again! Still Cleveland

Coming back was difficult. Also, nothing looked the same. However, after days on the road, Wendell Noh returned from his hunting trip.

He dropped his last cigarette on the road and stomped it. In his coat he rifled for a toothpick to replace it but found none. It'd be easy to ask her to make one for him. But he needed to shed her. As well as her stupid gun. Ridiculous fantasy gun. Unfortunately he'd needed it every step of the way once he entered Cleveland. A hundred dead devils lay at his feet on this street alone. Who knew how many thousands he cut through over the whole return journey.

As if stomping the cigarette brought some psychosomatic response nausea gripped him, his arms trembled, cold sweat broke on his brow. He took off his glasses, wiped them with a slip of cloth, and placed them back on his face with a heavy breath.

Only a short hunting trip. A brief deviation from normal life. An escape. Now he looked at his home street and wondered if it was possible to escape from the escape. Addiction had a way of seizing hold. He shivered and her voice sang pleasantly behind him: "Are you cold? I can create for you a warmer coat..."

Half the homes of his neighbors were burnt-out husks. The other half were partially disassembled in a logical and mathematical way, boards and plaster removed to then be rearranged elsewhere. Some of the devils had destroyed, while the others had begun to create. The edifice they built spanned a two-by-three group of houses that included his house, the two houses on either side of it, and the three houses on the next street over. Corridors now connected all of them, while a second layer stood affixed to their roofs, reaching upward with grandiose architectural stylings and innumerable flourishes for the sake of aesthetic alone. Balconies jutted dramatically, curved columns ended in Greco-Roman capitals, and so on. Wendell was not an architect. He did not know architectural terms. They were building something out of his house.

And others. The Cleveland skyline began to be dotted by similar structures. Growing upward, outward. There were the beginnings of a third tier on his house's structure. To what purpose? Wendell knew.

He brought the fantasy back with him. It clung to him like the stench of tobacco. Scraping his face he tried to scrape it off but it remained, he went too far, he stayed too long, fuck. Fuck!

Wendell threw down the goofy fantasy gun and marched at as steady a pace as he could muster toward his house. Flanz-le-Flore said something but he tried to tune her out. She wasn't real anymore. She couldn't exist here. In Cleveland. Fuck. It was like he got drunk, totally shitfaced drunk, blackout drunk, and unaware of himself rammed his jeep into a car full of children and they were dead and now his entire remaining life was a blackout in some prison except here everything was sunny, everything warm despite December.

"You dropped it! The relic I so graciously bestowed upon you," Flanz-le-Flore said as he stepped over the curb and onto the driveway that led to his permanently altered home.

He shoved her aside. "You can't come here. This isn't your world. Go home." The sickness in his stomach kept compounding, the tremors. "Stay outside. At least stay outside." His hands reached out, steadied her by the shoulders. "This is my home. My wife is here. I have to—I have to explain some things to her. She's going to be angry. Okay? She's going to be furious. I was late, I was smoking, she was worried sick. She'll scream and then she won't talk to me for a week and I'll have to be on my best behavior to win her back. And it'll take time. Months probably. Maybe even a year. But I'll win her back. I'll get this tobacco stench off me. You can't be here. I have to bring my world back to normal. I had too long a vacation. It's going to be a long time before I can have another."

Like when he got addicted to video games as a kid. Cold turkey.

He expected wrath from the faerie—fairy—queen. He'd felt it since the beginning, which was why he played the idiot while he woke and found his bearings. Logically he understood the best thing to do would be shoot her, but this option hadn't presented itself to him until just now—after he dropped the gun—and he knew why, because he assumed she couldn't have power here, not in his own front lawn, and it was a horrifying grip accompanied by a slick stream of sweat down his face to realize that no, she had power, sure as this uncertain monolith above him she had power.

Perhaps because she had power she did not resort to wrath. Her head shook with patience and pity. At first she'd followed behind him in a half-concussed daze and he let her because he disliked confrontation. Then she'd been useful as he fought through waves and waves of devils. But her self had slowly returned. As though the farther he got from Whitecrosse the more real she became. Now she spoke as she had once before, in her court:

"Wrong. Oh so very wrong. This world is not what you once knew, hero Wendell. But I suppose I must allow you to learn that for yourself..."

He resisted the urge to strike her. "I'm going to my wife now. And my baby daughter. Okay? Stay outside. Stay outside. Stay."

She hovered over his driveway, smiling serenely. Wendell backed away from her, adjusted his glasses, then turned and stormed into his house, pushing open the front door which was not locked. Which could no longer be locked because the lock had been destroyed.

Flanz-le-Flore remained beneath the inviolate sunlight. On an avenue reduced to perfect silence. She liked it not. Her hands extended and she called to her all the small living creatures hidden; those who had cowered before the intruding forces of devilry, those accustomed to surreptitiousness, those creatures of the natural world most suited to survival no matter what cataclysmic upheaval struck the surface of their world. They came: mice, and squirrels, and small birds whose song cracked the silence, gathering on the manicured grass marred only by dried stains Wendell refused to see (for his erstwhile reality was now his fantasy, and vice versa). Chipmunks and chirruping beetles and elegant, intelligent crows. Creatures that had survived the plastering of land once wooded and free—a forbidding landscape studded by strange bituminous roads—survived the felines kept for the sole purpose of their eradication. They had persisted.

Now that the Elf-Queen was dead no impediments remained to Flanz-le-Flore's ambitions. Already she changed; the gun on the ground at her feet was proof enough that Humanity had begun to infiltrate her. She needed only consummate with the hero and it would be final and she would become a new God, to replace whichever had once reigned here and who clearly reigned no more. Instead of mere transmogrification she would substantiate ex nihilo new life, new beings; hers would be a world aware of even the smallest mouse, the tiniest insect, where their life retained a preciousness on par with humans. A world of fair egalitarianism, over which she would preside, not as a tyrant like that Elf-Queen, but as a kindly warden. A world of fantasy, perhaps, but a fantasy worth having, a fantasy softer and more fair than the harsh laws under this cruel sun.

Paradise.

Yes. That would be her world. That Elf-Queen received such a boon and what became of it? Endless repetition of her own image, or what she wished her image to be: slavish devotion—disgusting. Why had he chosen her? If he only chose Flanz-le-Flore instead, four hundred years of misery might have been abated. If only...!

Wendell emerged from his house. He walked slowly. Every creature on his lawn watched him with attentive patience. The birds sang him a lovely song. He walked insensible to it all, each step more laborious than the last, as though he walked through molasses. His eyes saw nothing behind his glasses, they were wide but empty as death. His hands rose to his head and seized clumps of hair which they tugged absentmindedly, cruelly, ripping out tufts that flitted between his fingers. He reached the halfway point of the slope of gray not-quite-stone that led to his house then sat down abruptly.

Even Flanz-le-Flore knew what he found inside that place he once called his home. What remained of his "wife," his "infant daughter"... Had they not seen signs of what the devils did to humans since they set foot in this Cleveland? He had refused to think the unthinkable; that was true fantasy, not her, not Flanz-le-Flore, who still lived and breathed and possessed strength beyond measure and who would soon possess much more.

Now he was hers. An inert, hollowed-out cavity. A pliant form to bend to her will. This fact could not be clearer in his vacant stare. His slack posture.

Alas. Had he only been able to tell the difference between the real world and what he wanted it to be...

Now, at least, he would succumb to her. No petty moorings to his past remained. He would be hers; their love realized; all human essence hers to wield!

"They're laughing at me," he said, distressed.

"Nobody is laughing, hero Wendell."

"They are. I hear them. Hundreds of them." His head slouched onto his shoulder. He looked to the street, where the corpses of the devils had turned to rot. "They're laughing. They're laughing."

She drifted to him. "Forget, hero. Relinquish yourself from these shackles—"

His hand whipped out and slapped her hard on the cheek. She swiveled aside and spat blood, her brow furrowed, but she retained composure. Unpredictable still! Patience. Four hundred years and patience remained to you.

Wendell lurched upright and staggered down his sloped stone walkway. He dropped a hand low and scooped the relic gun from where it lay. Flanz-le-Flore pressed her fingertips together, ready to transform the weapon to something harmless, but he turned it not toward her but to the corpses in the street.

"They are quite dead, very much so," she told him.

He swiveled the barrel of the gun to and fro, seeking one who still moved; they were nothing but decayed mush. He claimed they laughed, but they did not. Or at least, Flanz-le-Flore heard nothing.

"Cease this pointless striving against that which can no longer be fought," she said. "Release yourself. I shall make every moment for you from now on pleasant and joyful. You need only surrender..."

Finally, finding nothing to shoot and kill, he turned toward her. Once more she readied to neutralize him, but to her dismay he did something far worse.

He didn't look at her at all.

He looked up. She turned; the strange construction atop his home remained as it had been, unfinished, incomprehensible. She glanced to him again to attempt to discern what he saw in it, only to realize he looked not at it either. He looked above it, past it.

He looked at the black tower.

"It all has to be destroyed," he said. "All of it. All of them."

Flanz-le-Flore's smile waned. She supposed she still had work to do on him yet. In the interim—she could not refute his human will. Wendell started down the street the way he came, and Flanz-le-Flore followed with all her attendant creatures.

—

Sansaime knew this place. She'd seen it on TV. Why they took her here, who could fathom. It'd been the rabbit girl, Pythette, who did it. Scooped up Sansaime and Mademerry insensible and carried them quickly.

A lot of people were here. They'd come in flight of the devil horde that now plagued these lands. They lounged in clusters amid the sharply inclined flights of seats. Some erected tents on the lacquered wooden floor in the center, under the gigantic inactive four-sided television set that was suspended from the ceiling.

In many ways it looked like the large church where everything happened. Perhaps that would've stricken her with some residual agony. Perhaps, too, might the occasional phone calls received from Shannon Waringcrane; it seemed, however, Sansaime had expended her lifetime's worth of melancholy and despair. Events had strained her body past its capacity. She could not wail in perpetuity the way she had in Avery's house. Instead exceptional humor swelled her, turned her head light with airy nonsense. She laughed often, at everything, at nothing, and though the screens above played nothing, she found other entertainment.

"Nah," the child said. "You're doing it wrong. You're missing the secret! There. There! Oh my god!"

He was a boy of about twelve, in short pants and a shirt with a mushroom on it and a hat with the word Nintendo, which was also printed on the device Sansaime held between her hands. Excitedly, exasperatedly, he jabbed his finger at the screen to indicate the "secret" Sansaime missed, but Sansaime ignored him and commanded her odd mustachioed avatar to leap and dive and roll and flip onward toward the inverted pyramid suspended over the desert.

"I can't believe it! You're so bad at this game! I didn't miss that secret when I played." He got so worked up his voice cracked.

This video game was nothing like the ones on Jay's computer. Sansaime liked it. Instead of reams of text she couldn't read, this game dropped you in a big world and let you run around with a thrilling freedom. Plus, she could hold the device in her hands, unlike the computer. The kid who loaned it to her provided an annoyance, but one she could "tune out," as they said. She could "tune out" everything and be in that moment this portly man Mario, wayfarer, who himself tossed his hat and possessed the bodies of other creatures, a layered progression of fantastical escape.

And it was a funny game. She dove into an abyss. Mario expelled an array of colorful gold coins and went "Wa-aa-aa-oo!" The kid slapped his face melodramatically and said: "You're the worst gamer I've seen since my little sister, and she's seven years old!"

Sansaime hurled back her head and cackled. Mario "respawned," ready to plunge into abysses again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

—

After Lucifer and Uriel ascended to a higher plane of existence, Mayfair became faint and fatigued, perhaps on account of the violent nausea she experienced in the presence of humanity's ultimate adversary. If not for Demny's aid, she may have passed out, and soon after fallen prey to the devils that swarmed en masse from the black tower.

Carried on Demny's back, Mayfair emerged from her desiccation to see a fortress. High, sloped walls comprised of stone and mortar, reminiscent of some structures in Whitecrosse—excepting the words printed on the top in gigantic letters, words that read incomprehensibly: Quicken Loans Arena.

That was where they entrenched themselves against the devils. Mayfair now sat within the arena's central control room, peering through a long sheet of glass at the rows of seats and the enigmatic court for the tournament known as "basketball." Now some thousand people took refuge here, protected by the defensive perimeter Mayfair had established at the arena's entrances.

The difficulty came primarily at the onset, before Mayfair possessed many tools for her defense. But as the devils rampaged across the city, as they slaughtered humans without remorse or pity, Mayfair had, hm, shored up her defensive capabilities. Considerably. In Whitecrosse, limits to the Staff of Lazarus' quantity of control had never been tested. Now, Mayfair began to wonder if any limits existed.

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A macabre thought. A wretched turn her mission had taken her. Yet the death clouded only the deeper reaches of her mind as she stared down at the relative few her efforts had managed to save. No, another matter occupied her attention.

Uriel. Lucifer. God! Had none of them heard her? Had none of them even considered her as the architect of this mayhem, enough to listen for one moment to her plea? Was Whitecrosse brought to Earth only to share its obliteration without chance of salvation? Truthfully, Mayfair could not particularly weep for the thousands, perhaps millions of snuffed lives on Earth, for were they not now brought into God's embrace, consigned to the godhead as promised by Christ? Pastor Styles, incinerated by the manifestation of Uriel, was now reaping the reward of his just and godly life, but what of Cinquefoil? Of Obedience? Of Charm?

Mayfair's mission remained unfinished. Indeed it became more dire than ever. If those devils overran Whitecrosse, she would have only consigned them all to damnation for no other purpose. And so their last breath in existence would be spent hating her, despising her, cursing her for their misfortune, and she would've simply turned them all against her again, proven herself a worthy vessel for their disdain. That was the thought that caused her skin to grow clammy as it gripped the head of the Staff of Lazarus: that all along, their coldness, their looks, all along she deserved them.

No. No, no, no! Not that way. Not mother, not Viviendre, not Prime Astrologer DeWint, none of them, most of all none of them must be proven right. Never.

The door opened. Mayfair need not look. The guards she stationed at her door had brought to her attention wordlessly the identity of her visitor. "Mr. Vance," she said in what she assumed was a pleasant tone, not yet facing him while she hastily drove into her face composure. Only then did she turn.

He stood there: Justin "Just" Vance. The priest who provided to Pastor Styles use of his megachurch. The man whose aura smiled.

"Mayfair. How are you?"

He spoke even such a pleasantry with conviction. His hands clasped humbly, his eyes squinted into elegant uncle-like folds.

"I am well," she said.

"It does my heart good to hear it. You are a light in this darkness, Mayfair."

She hesitated; remained rooted in her swivel chair with perfect posture to confront him. For the past two days he had acted as the representative of the living people of Cleveland. He had come with simple requests, utilitarian necessities, things the people in the arena needed to survive, which only she could gather. He had spoken even words such as "food" and "water" and "medicine" more like a cloud than a human. He seemed to float, and sometimes Mayfair wondered if he wasn't dead, if she hadn't resurrected him and forgotten among all her other corpses, if she played this trick upon herself to craft a fantasy of power.

His evanescence she met with hard and logical recitation. "I have one group returning in two hours—assuming they're not waylaid. They're carrying seven hundred pounds of unspoiled food which combined with our current stores should last us another two or three days. However it is already becoming difficult to forage from local shops. My party has also found five survivors, which is why their movement is slower than usual. The devils are more likely to attack the living. Please relay that information to the others; I pray they understand. That ought to provide sufficient synopsis."

In fact, on the desk amid all the bizarre computer equipment, Mayfair kept papers that catalogued this information. Pounds food recovered, pounds food consumed, she noted it all and so doing eliminated inefficiencies. She kept itinerary likewise of other supplies available: tents, generators, fuel, vehicles (a large collection in the two on-site garages affixed to the premises), clothes, blankets, bandages, this world's miraculous material known as disinfectant, vitamins, flashlights, batteries, tools, and—of course—weapons. It took exceptional effort but she found this level of management quite suitable to her skills.

"Thank you, Mayfair. You've done so much for us all."

She nodded and awaited the unintimated true purpose of his visit. He floated, his smile floated. He said:

"Would you take the trouble then, Mayfair, to come down and speak to the people?"

"I've done that. I don't have time for more speeches. I have to think. I have to plan. It's important—"

"Mayfair," Just Vance said, "you've given them food, but they need more than that."

"Whatever they need, I'll get."

"They need you, Mayfair. You are more than yourself. I admit I had my doubts at first. But your speech—and the events that followed—and the rapturous light of the angel that descended from heaven beside you. The dead of this city risen as Christ's true soldiers to protect their friends and family. In the arena I've set up a stage for you. I have cameras too."

"Cameras?"

"You will be broadcasted to all those still watching in this troubled nation. And believe me, they are still watching. They are hungry, Mayfair, they are starving, not for bread, but for hope. You give them hope. You transmit to them the light of God—"

"Enough," Mayfair said. She rubbed her face. This temptation. "Enough, enough. I can't give them hope if I'm not actually helping them. To help them I need to be alone. I need to concentrate." (And they didn't know. They didn't know she caused all the misfortune to begin with. If they knew—Bah!)

"It is not a material hope they need; they need hope in the hereafter, hope in the Kingdom of God that awaits them. You must shepherd them toward salvation now. What hope is there in striving against God's will? The faithful must ready themselves to be taken into His arms..."

"You think this is God's will?"

"It can only be so."

Her eyes closed. "I still have work to do. Talk to me again another time."

His smile shone through her eyelids, a luminescent curve. "I'll come again soon, Mayfair. But this moment has been foretold long before you and I existed. We can't shirk our duty once He calls our name."

The smile faded. Soundlessly he retreated. The door squealing on its hinges the only indication of his departure. She anticipated the door's final slam, but no such sound came. She opened her eyes and he remained there in the doorway, still smiling, eyes bright like gems.

"One last thing," Just Vance said. "I have friends throughout this country. I hear the president of this God-fearing nation has finally rallied our good soldiers for the final battle against the forces of Satan. They will strike that black tower within two days. I ask you only to have decided your role by then."

The door shut. So they believed it was Armageddon, did they? Queer. The thought hadn't chanced Mayfair's mind, but now she considered it somewhat appropriate. Satan himself did emerge from that tower, after all. But then who was the false prophet? Her? And what of Israel, and the Mark of the Beast, and the rest? Well. Mayfair knew scripture often needed crafting to fit the story those in power wanted.

If Cleveland became the site of a massive battle, though—and she knew after her time in this world the might of its armies—that might inflict new difficulties upon the people in the arena. Even a fortress would fall beneath bombs and missiles. Perhaps the underground parts might provide bunker enough? Armageddon. Ridiculous. As if they hadn't read Revelations once in their life.

Her next visitor came.

"Found it!" Pythette bounded through the door, pirouetted, displayed upon spread arms the fruits of her recent foray into the outside world. Faster than the corpses, Mayfair had entrusted to her a matter of particular delicateness, and one glance was enough to know she'd accomplished her mission handily.

"Thank you. Please leave them by my desk," Mayfair said.

Humming merrily to herself, Pythette did as told. She'd been depressed during the hours after the megachurch, but nothing kept her down long. Now she served a refreshing uplift as she neatly arranged the numerous broad paper bags in perfect rows beside Mayfair's seat. Mayfair tilted her head to glance into them: Stacks and stacks and stacks of papers.

"Was it difficult to find your way to Pastor Styles' home?"

"Not one bit Your Highness! Sped right there exactly how your directions said. True trouble was coming back—coming back was difficult. A rather nasty infestation of those devils blocked the route, too thick for me to sprint through even full speed. Some sort of parade they were up to, I think. Well it did look like a lot of fun, music and shining lights and all that, and I found myself standing there dumbstruck by the display. Felt like I was looking into a diamond, that I did. Not that I've ever seen a diamond. Only when they threw this hook at me and tried to reel me in like a fish did I shake the sight—"

"And this is all of the papers?"

"Oh yes! Nabbed every last one. May've lost a couple here and there on the sprint back. I tried to go slower so they wouldn't all go flying. Hope it's okay—I swear I lost no more than two or three. Five at most!"

"It should be fine." Statistically speaking, highly probable they were only pages detailing the number of trees in such-and-such forest or rocks on such-and-such mountain. "Thank you, Pythette."

"Anything else you need, Your Highness? Eager to serve!" She snapped to attention and saluted smartly; her tall hare ears, otherwise constantly wiggling, went rigid.

"That's all. See if Demny requires any assistance fortifying the barricades."

"Yes Your Highness!" With a whoosh so strong it sent the tops of the paper stacks fluttering, Pythette was gone.

Mayfair snatched a few loose pages out of the air and replaced them, wondering if it were truly only "five at most" lost in transit. Perhaps Demny would have been a more dependable candidate for the mission. But in case of emergency—if, for instance, the devils attempted a coordinated assault on the arena—Mayfair would rather ensure Demny was nearby. While most of the devils were flimsy, easily dispatched by even a single one of her corpses, they boasted impressive numbers, and a select few proved far hardier than their peers. One foe, fought the day prior, had rampaged through line after line of corpses, kicked down the barricades with one strike, and clawed its gigantic hulking body into the entrance before Demny slew it with one strike of that curious black sword that could cut even the aura of an angel.

In comparison, the mission to reclaim the rest of the Whitecrosse papers was of low priority. Especially with Just Vance's news of encroaching war. She ought to place all her energy into preparations.

Yet as soon as the door swung shut behind Pythette and all went once more still in the control room, Mayfair dug into the stacks, sifted restlessly, placed pages of interest in particular piles—Pythette had, naturally, failed to maintain the painstaking organizational schema Mayfair implemented—and finally found the sheets her curiosity burned to see most of all.

Moving Whitecrosse to Earth had not rendered the papers inoperable, but she had already assumed that would be the case given the papers never stopped working for Sansaime. During the megachurch event, she'd kept a few relevant pages on her person—particularly concerning the nuns, and Flanz-le-Flore, and the major figures of Castle Whitecrosse, and the elves—but unfortunately those pages were destroyed when the waves of Lake Erie rose up and submerged her. (At least in the nuns' case, losing the pages did not seem to have any deleterious effects). Shannon Waringcrane and Wendell Noh never had pages. But there were others.

Firstly, Sansaime's page. She might have use for it now; she tucked it carefully into her clothes for safekeeping. Next, Theovora's page. Mayfair failed to convince her before, but perhaps now with changed circumstances—startlingly, though, Theovora was deceased. Mayfair puzzled over the clear and obvious proclamation ("DEAD") that blotted out Theovora's page. How did that happen? To be researched later.

Then the one major figure in Whitecrosse whose paper she had not dared touch—until now. Queen Mallory Tivania Coke. Mayfair handled the paper carefully, half-anticipating another large DEAD to cover it, but it seemed her mother yet lived. Not terribly surprising. What exactly was she up to, though?

Ah. Of course. Spearheading an expedition to Cleveland. Mayfair ought to have realized. The woman spent so many days daydreaming of war it'd take an army to hold her back from joining one. It appeared she had Shannon with her; Tricia as well. A few spare soldiers, and in a strange turn of events that dandy Gonzago of Meretryce. She fished out Gonzago's page—she had not brought it with her to the megachurch—though she hadn't a clue what to do with it now, either.

Would it be best to use the papers to assist their war party? Mayfair mulled the question. Perhaps. Though she'd already wasted hours simply picking out these needles from the haystack. Other matters demanded attention.

Nonetheless, she continued searching. There was at least one more paper she wanted to find: Lalum's. Like Theovora, she might be amenable to persuasion given changed circumstances. First, though, she found Jay Waringcrane.

Lalum was with him. Perhaps she could actually convince Jay himself, which would convince Lalum by proxy—but as she looked more closely into Jay's current situation, she grew perplexed. He was traveling from the monastery. Why had he gone there? Where did Viviendre go? And who was this third person traveling with him? Who was this Perfidia Bal Berith?

Why did that name sound familiar. Perfidia Bal Berith. Perfidia Bal Berith. A rather insidious-sounding name. Judges 9:4: "And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baalberith, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light persons, which followed him." A false idol. A devil—

Come on kiddo, whaddya say. Let Perfidia Bal Berith take care of ya.

HER!

That—that cretin! The one who'd attempted to—seduce Mayfair. The former Master. The one she suspected masterminded the assassination attempt at the megachurch. Why had she gone to Jay? Why? Mayfair needed to know. Had to know!

Spent the next four hours learning. Piecing the narrative together from scrounged pages. Mayfair learned why Jay went to the monastery, why he left Viviendre there, how Theovora died. But she learned something even more important. Something that left her speechless, something that sagged her into the swivel chair which squeaked under her weight.

Jay and Perfidia planned to reach the top of that tower—Pandaemonium—and acquire the divine power held there. Jay would pick up the power, and then without question hand it over to Perfidia. Such a baffling, ridiculous plot. Did he not question Perfidia's motives whatsoever? Did he not expect subterfuge? What possessed him to trust her with the literal power of God?

Insanity! Simplemindedness. How could—how possibly—under no circumstances whatsoever could Mayfair allow such an event to transpire. Wretched luck that of those in Jay's party she only had direct access to Lalum, who had already rebuffed her before, but a platoon of the dead ought to suffice to impede him...

Wait. No. Mayfair pulled the pertinent paper close to her face and reread. Divinity, Humanity, the nitty-gritty particulars of events. Assuming this were all true. Assuming a human could simply acquire it for themselves as long as they reached its holding-place at the apex of Pandaemonium...

She shot upright. The swivel chair swirled in her wake, she set to pacing, folding her arms tensely behind her back, her fingers digging into the parchment of the page she still held. Divinity. Well even disregarding the moral imperative it fell on any true follower of Christ to wrest such power out of the hands of mankind's mortal—or immortal—foe. She turned sharp on one heel, the window into the arena whirred all its people before her, she paused and looked down to the court where Temporary played with some children, or rather flailed about on the floor while the children gleefully leapt up and down on her.

With that power, that so-called "Divinity," God could not let her go unheard. No. He would have to listen to her prayer. To her humble request for salvation of the people of Whitecrosse.

And if he didn't? With that power she could grant it to them herself. Perfidia told Jay that Divinity was simply a conglomerate mass of "Humanity"—the essence, the soul. She would be their salvation. Even if its power annihilated her body in the process. That death one for which they would remember her forevermore...

Mayfair resolved at once. She must acquire the Divinity before Jay Waringcrane.

She broke away from the window and turned for the door. First, she'd organize Demny and Pythette. Temporary might prove useful as well—and the Mustard Seed, of course. Would it be so simple as to waltz into Pandaemonium and ascend to its peak? Doubtful. But if she kept a close eye on Perfidia, learned more. Yes. She possessed every conceivable tool at her disposal to ensure success. This was what must be done.

She flung open the door and moved down the corridor, all abuzz with thought and industry, schemes and plans assembling themselves as via magic in her mind, strings connecting to other strings in a grand tapestry of self-ideation, when a voice behind her wrenched her from the flurry:

"Please."

Before she realized she ought not turn she turned. There, in the shadows, amid a pile of empty cardboard boxes, the figure slouched.

"Please. Mayfair—Lady Mayfair. Please."

It was Mademerry. Arms wrapped around herself, wings folded, neck angled so that despite her natural advantage in height she peered up at Mayfair, eyes pleading.

"I need. I simply need. Let me be useful to you. I can't—I cannot—"

"I've told you," Mayfair said sharply. "Assist Demny with the barricades. That is the most you can do for me. Indeed, I could use you to fetch Demny now, I wish to speak to her."

"You wish to speak to... Demny? Not me?"

Mayfair suppressed a seething wince. Since the events at the megachurch Mademerry had gone to great lengths to render herself inutile. She dogged Mayfair at every moment, sought every excuse to be close to her, frequently burst into these strange wailing monologues in complaint of the redheaded woman she killed. All so noisy, all so—sour in Mayfair's stomach. Demny followed orders wordlessly; Pythette with an exuberant salute. Mademerry could not muster even that level of obedience, despite her endless protestations to the contrary; she could not do a thing without wringing her claws together. Mayfair had no time for it now.

"Find Demny, or leave me in peace. I'll have use for you in the future; perhaps much use. But now, what I need is organization and—poise."

"Organization? Poise?" The reptilian shape slouched forward, out of which emerged a contorted vision of Mayfair herself—or perhaps her brother, which was in many ways worse. "That is exactly what I bring to you, is it not? It was me who led those nuns to fulfill your aims—I did that, was I not skillful at it? I simply wish to stand by your side, Mayfair. Let me protect you, harbor your worries and fears, let me be a mind against which your mind may bounce in pursuit of greater understanding—"

"No, no. I think better alone, I always have, I had to tell DeWint that so many times. Mademerry, you've done much to help me, and I do thank you, but I must remain focused now. Now especially! Go down to the arena and await my orders."

"The arena? The arena? Where she is? I cannot. Her presence, I cannot—"

"I do not understand what Sansaime means to you," Mayfair said, although a recess in the back of her mind told her she may indeed understand, and such understanding ill met her. "Leave her be. She's inert, useless, she won't attempt to attack me again. She's playing games and nothing else. You already harmed her enough when you killed—"

"NO!" Mademerry shrieked. Mayfair instantly realized she'd spoken herself into a mistake; now it would never end. "You cannot blame me for that Lady Mayfair, oh Mayfair I had to, you don't understand, and it was all in service of you, how can you speak to me in such a reproachful tone, I didn't—I did not—I—Please! I ask for so little."

"I ask for even less: Leave me alone."

A cutting, even cruel remark. It was necessitated. Mademerry sagged to her knees and sobbed, which left her stationary. Mayfair swiftly egressed.

Wretched. Mayfair could design her own person from scratch, craft her to her every whim, and still they found some way to deviate. What could the girl expect from Mayfair when she was such a wreck? No matter. Mayfair put Mademerry out of her mind. Returned her thoughts to Pandaemonium as she looked down at the page that catalogued Jay Waringcrane's current actions. This matter was of too much importance for annoying distractions; it might decide the fate of both worlds, of the balance of power in the perpetual fight between good and evil. Yes. In that context Mademerry meant nothing. She ought to be used how she might and prohibited from interfering elsewise. Yet as Mayfair delved into the fringes of the arena in search of Demny, she could not fully suppress a pang of pity for the girl; nor a pang of pity for herself, who had given herself exactly what she always wanted.